Of the 99 chess stories returned by Google News for the month of April, 27 were about the just concluded Candidates tournament (CT).
One of the non-CT stories related to a report from the previous post on this chess960 blog, Chessbase and Its 180 on 960 (March 2024). Specifically,
2024-03-16: Carlsen, Buettner Unveil Extravagant Chess960 Grand Slam Tour Across 5 Continents (chess.com; TarjeiJS; comments)
The latest report informed,
- 2024-04-26: Carlsen-led Freestyle Chess event in India on hold (hindustantimes.com; Susan Ninan) • 'The Chess960 event that was originally scheduled to take place in India in November hasn’t found takers yet, forcing Jan Buettner to shelve plans for now.'
For more about possible reasons behind the lack of investors, see:-
- 2024-04-26: Tarjei J. Svensen on X: "“The only ones interested (in India) were those who wanted me to invest a couple of hundred thousand into their hotel.”" (x.com, aka Twitter)
For example, one comment said,
There is no way any popular chess venues are going to commit to a freestyle chess tournament in November. They are busy bidding for the World Championship match.
So the victory of Indian GM Gukesh in the CT interfered with hopes for a chess960 tournament in India. Why am I not surprised?
